Dell, Techs Head Lower — Wednesday’s IP Market Recap

by Kyle Woodley | February 22, 2012 4:56 pm

[1]The S&P 500 shied away from a key resistance point at 1,360 on Wednesday, with tech and financial stocks among the trading day’s bigger losers.

Dell (NASDAQ:DELL[2]) dropped almost 6% on a lousy fourth-quarter earnings report[3] that saw profits decline 17% and fall below Wall Street estimates. Dell also provided weak current-quarter forecasts[4]. Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX[5]) dropped more than 4% on the same day it announced its service would be immediately available on Sony’s (NYSE:SNE[6]) PlayStation Vita handheld video game device.

Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT[15]) ran into a second straight day of losses after its lackluster earnings report[16], shedding about 2.5% Wednesday. The company’s report, which usually comes near the end of the earnings season, was an appropriate symbol for this go-around — the S&P 500 has seen its lowest earnings beat rate (64%) since 4Q 2008[17], with 26% of companies falling below estimates.

Three Up

Three Down

Newfield Exploration (NYSE:NFX[21]): Down 12.7% ($5.37) to $36.88.

Yingli Green Energy (NYSE:YGE[22]): Down 10% (48 cents) to $4.33

Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU[23]): Down 5.1% (13 cents) to $2.44.

Kyle Woodley[24] is the assistant editor of InvestorPlace.com[25]. As of this writing, he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. Check out recaps from previous trading days here[26].